Erica Gillingham

An Introduction

Erica Gillingham is an academic, writer, and expert in LGBTQ+ children’s and young adult literature. She currently works as a bookseller at Gay’s the Word bookshop, the UK’s oldest LGBTQ+ bookshop, an Associate Tutor at the University of East Anglia, and a Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Roehampton.

Erica completed her PhD at the National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature at Roehampton in Autumn 2017 with her thesis examining narrative constructions of same-sex relationships between female characters in young adult novels and graphic texts across genre and form. Erica received her MA in Children’s Literature from Roehampton in 2010, and her BAs in Feminist Studies and Literature (Creative Writing – Poetry) from the University of California – Santa Cruz in 2007.

Her reviews and articles on children’s and young adult literature have been published on various book review blogs and industry journals and her poetry has been published by Fincham Press and university publications. She also volunteers with Poet in the City, interviewing world-class poets as part of their Audio Team, and Inclusive Minds, as a Collaborator. A native Californian, Erica has lived in London with her wife since 2009.